Book of Your Life (BoYL)
Co-designing a community space and activities to promote cultural diversity and inclusion.
The Local Challenge
This long-running collaboration between Eötvös Loránd University (ULA) and the Student Union (ELTE EHÖK) places a special emphasis on supporting inclusion activities and meeting the unique needs of their international student community. With over 100 countries represented within ELTE, this creates certain integrational challenges for some students from different cultural and social backgrounds, and those who have experienced conflict. This challenge promotes cultural diversity and inclusion by giving visibility to intercultural values that contribute positively to the well-being of international students.
The Initiative What’s Next?
They are applying a participatory approach involving international and local students early on in the creation of a community space at ULA, incorporating the co-design and implementation of related activities to ensure ownership. EHÖK and their international student ambassadors are creating programmes, while facilitating personal connections and building a shared sense of belonging for the whole community.
What’s Next?
In the context of global issues such as ecological challenges, war, poverty and cyber threats, higher education institutions and libraries can now play a significant role in defending the ‘culture of trust and understanding’. This partnership will also record how they learned about practical solutions to fulfil this role, so it can be transferable to other contexts.
This is an ongoing Europe Challenge project that will be completed in autumn 2024. Stay tuned for more updates and contact theeuropechallenge@culturalfoundation.eu if you have any questions or want to be connected with the team behind the project.
